mikejuk writes: Programming is a skill for which demand currently outstrips supply by a huge margin. Is the solution to go back to the sort of hardware that inspired the self-taught programmers of the 80s?The well known and much talked about Raspberry Pi is a small ARM/GNU Linx box for $25 and it is supposed to bring programming back to the masses.First let me say that I think that Raspberry Pi is wonderful and I want one, as I'm sure you do, but it isn't going to bring programming back to the masses.If you read any review of this wonder you will find that all that is talked about is the hardware. Somewhere towards the end you might see a reference to what software it might run, but never more than a short paragraph.The point is that we don't really need more hardware to get kids interested in computers — we need the right software. Raspberry Pi is yummy but it isn't essential.You can see classrooms full of computers in most schools. Homes have multiple machines. Portables, laptops and tablets they are all over the place and if you take into account the population of mobile phones then you can see that lack of hardware isn't really the problem. What ever it is, be it Scratch, Alice, Kodu or something really new, it is unlikely to be hardware like Raspberry Pi — desirable though it is.